Cheap and nasty: Diesel price cut won't add to city pollution

Discounts on diesel will be a thing for the bush, not the Big Smoke, reports BOB JENNINGS.

11 July 1999

Don't expect to see a sudden rush of diesel-powered cars on the Australian market, despite the Federal Government's plan to cut the price of diesel fuel by a third having moved a step closer.

And despite fears that the new legislation will increase diesel use in cities, with a subsequent increase in pollution, there is provision to preserve the price advantage of other, cleaner fuels.

The relevant Bills have passed through Federal Parliament, but the price concessions will apply only to commercial vehicles - either those with a minimum weight of 4.5 tonnes used for transport in or to regional centres, or to all vehicles with a gross vehicle mass of more than 20 tonnes.

Fears that the slashing of diesel costs would lead to greater use of diesel and consequent higher pollution levels in urban areas have been countered by statutory changes that will preserve the relative price advantages of liquid petroleum gas, compressed natural gas (both used extensively in public transport) and methanol, which is being considered as an additional low-pollution fuel.

All of which means the alternative fuels will become even cheaper and more attractive to urban users. LPG is about half the price of diesel fuel (which in Sydney is about 72? a litre) so if the Government's promise is carried out, LPG should drop from 27.6? a litre to between 20? and 25?.

In a further move to reduce the pollution bogey, Transport and Regional Services Minister John Anderson said stringent European standards for diesel vehicle emissions would come into force in Australia from 2002, cutting oxides of nitrogen emissions by 40 per cent and particulates emissions by 70 per cent.

This should go a long way towards curing the obvious urban pollution caused by smoking diesel exhausts.

The standards would be further tightened in 2006, he said, with cuts of 50 per cent for the oxides of nitrogen and 90 per cent for particulates.

The European standards have spawned a new range of highly efficient diesel engines for passenger cars, that have the added attraction, on their home soil, of running on fuel which often is around half the price of petrol.

Although the cut in excise on Australian diesel fuel is designed to reduce out-of-town transport costs, the attractive pricing of diesel fuel has potential users of the fuel in passenger cars looking on with envy.

The few diesel cars that have found their way to Australia - imported by optimists such as Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Peugeot - have carried a price premium of about $2,000. While potentially they offer significantly better economy, with parity pricing a high annual distance needs to be covered for there to be a financial benefit.

A significant proportion of four-wheel drives, particularly those used for commercial purposes, run on diesel.

New developments in direct diesel engines, combined with catalytic converters, claim to reduce emissions substantially. For instance, Mitsubishi's latest diesel for passenger vehicles is claimed to give a 30 per cent better range than a conventional diesel equivalent - with a consequent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions - while nitrous oxides have been cut by 35 per cent.

High performance levels are achieved and both BMW and Volkswagen have demonstrated this with excellent results in long-distance touring car races in Europe including the 24-hour events at Spa-Francorchamps and the Nurburgring.

Despite high-tech moves by car makers to improve the emission performance of diesel, it still has a bad reputation among environmental authorities, especially in urban areas.

In hard-nosed California, the home of anti-pollution laws, diesel exhausts have been targeted.

Investigations by the Environmental Protection Agency have identified 40 substances in diesel exhausts as being either hazardous or pollutants, while 15 of them have been listed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as being carcinogenic to humans, or a probable or possible human carcinogen.

With busy urban centres such as Sydney and Melbourne already suffering from diesel pollution overload, the possibility of cheaper diesel fuel for private cars and taxis - and the attractive financial benefits which would result - are simply not on the Government's agenda.

Drive Comments

0 Comments

Facebook Comments

Share

Width

Profile

Rim

The size of your tyre is located on the sidewall of your tyre.It will be similar to the sample below.